Class Description
"I think fiction starts with something really unusual,” says the writer Samanta Schweblin. “Normality is a big lie.” If you are a writer who’s drawn to the unusual, be it the unreal, the uncanny, or the undead, or if you’d like to learn how to bring elements of horror, fairy tale, sci-fi, or surrealism to your writing, this class is for you.
Many of us read and write scary or fantastical stories in order to escape. But supernatural writing also has a long history of engaging with the social norms and fears of its time. How does a haunted house story sit after the era of home quarantine? How does our new understanding of pandemics encourage us to rethink vampire and zombie narratives? Can a fairy tale or fable help us communicate ideas during a time of social upheaval?
In this workshop and generative class, we’ll experiment with prompts and exercises meant to help us imbibe our work with the magical, the scary, and the strange, and we’ll provide feedback on each other’s pieces. We’ll look to the experts for inspiration, reading work by authors such as Steven Graham Jones, Silvina Ocampo, Angela Carter, Julio Cortázar, Nalo Hopkinson, Lily Hoang, Sofia Samatar, and Octavia E. Butler. We’ll also read and discuss each other’s writing, with each student having the opportunity to be formally workshopped once. Whatever your goals are for writing the supernatural, you’ll come away from this class with gleefully weird work and a range of thrilling new ideas.
Writing Roadmap: We've created a simple, goal-based writing roadmap to help you find the perfect GrubStreet course for your writing needs.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.